2014
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Wesley Brookes, MSc
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MSc Student
Wesley Brookes, MSc
Historical and contemporary disturbance regimes in the central interior dry forests of British Columbia
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Associates of Arts in General Studies
Associates of Arts in Earth Sciences
B.Sc.F. Forest Ecology - specializing in forest soils
M.Sc. Forest Ecology - specializing in fire and forest entomology
MSc Thesis
The current perception in the southern interior of British Columbia is that fire suppression and climate change have left the dry Douglas-fir forests less resilient to disturbance by fire and western spruce budworm. Fire suppression has increased fuel loads, crown closure, vertical complexity, and host abundance. These changes in forest structure combined with climate change is believed to increased risk of more frequent and severe fires along with more frequent and severe outbreaks. However, without an accurate picture of what the regimes of these disturbances were in the past we cannot assess the degree to which they have changed or are changing. Therefore, the purpose of my current research is to develop a historical reconstruction of these disturbances to act as a historical reference for comparison with contemporary records.